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Such scares have happened in washington before. in 2004, a letter containing ricin powder shut down three senate offices for two days. extraordinary precautions were taken to keep senators and staff safe. in 2003, the secret service revealed, president george w. bush received a letter containing a vial of ricin. no one was harmed in any of the cases. in this latest case, no word on anyone becoming sick. there is no indication this is tied to the boston terror scares. pierre thomas, abc news, washington. >> what is most important about the story, field tests are notoriously inaccurate. once aga...

Are written to senators. ricin is poisonous. there is no suspected link between the letter and boston bombings. but, michael, if this is ricin, what happens next in that kind of an investigation? >> well, i'm going to take a step back. i think we have to be very hesitant to say it is ricin. field tests quite routinely come back positive and ultimate scientific tests do not. so we don't know if it is. if it turns out to be ricin, whether there is any connection whatsoever to boston, that will take some time to develop. >> generally speaking, it's a separate investigation. they find ricin in a l...

Tests i must say, are oftentimes wrong. we've had field tests on mail at the capitol that have tested positive for ricin. i remember one at a mail sorting machine that testing positive and it was paper dust from the mail machine. they take the material, they send it to a lab where it's cultured and then they'll see if there is actually ricin and if there is, then it's a pretty serious matter. there's no, no one is suggesting anything connection between this an boston. obviously, the mail would have had to have been sent before the boston thing. and the other thing is sending a letter to a memb...

News justice correspondent, pete williams. thank you so much for being with us. it to get to the investigation and what we know, the latest on that, but first, i want to begin with these ricin reports. a letter sent to roger wicker did test positive. how serious should we take this? what are the odds of a false positive? i'd like to get a little context before we start ringing the alarm bell. >> let's understand what the results come from. all mail to the u.s. capitol is sent to an off sight facility where it's tested for all kinds of things. the envelope was found, pulled out of the mail supp...

Funeral saying it was too costly. thatcher died last monday. she was 87. the senate is on high alert this morning as capitol police and fbi investigate a suspicious letter addressed to one of its members. as abc's pierre thomas reports, field tests show the letter appears to be have been tainted with potentially fatal poison. >> reporter: sources are telling us a letter addressed to mississippi senator roger wicker tested positive for poison ricin in a field test at the senate mail office in landover, maryland. the letter was postmarked, memphis, tennessee. there is no information on who may...